Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur - Festivals

IIT Kharagpur organises a techno-management festival known as Kshitij. It is the biggest techno-management festival of Asia with a total budget of around 50 lakh. An annual techno-management festival organised in January or February, it receives participation from other colleges as well. Events include technical workshops, seminars, and competitions. Robotix, the annual robotics competition held by IIT Kharagpur, is organised during Kshitij. The cultural festival, Spring Fest, is held in January. Spring Fest includes numerous cultural competitions in addition to stage shows (known as Star-nights) by noted singers and performers.^[41] The Star-nights are the main attraction of Spring Fest; often more than 10,000 people pack into the Tagore Open Air Theatre, built with a capacity of 3,000 people. The event attracts participation from colleges across India.^[5]

Illumination, popularly known as Illu, is a festival unique to IIT Kharagpur. It is inspired from the day of Diwali (the festival of lights) and is usually held on the day of Diwali itself. It is held as a competition among student halls.^[41] As part of the Illumination festival, all halls build vertical panels of bamboo (called Chatais) on which thousands of lamps (diyas) are mounted forming outlines of people or things; illustrating an event, or a place of importance. The chatais may reach a height of 6 metres (20 ft), with nearly 20,000 lighted lamps. The lamps on the chatais are lighted with all other light sources switched off, to showcase the art-panels made by the flickering lamps. On the same day as Illumination, the Rangoli Competition is organised as an inter-hall event.^[41] Rangolis of exquisite detail and shading—measuring around 3.5 by 3.5 metres (11 by 11 ft) —are constructed using coloured powders, crushed bangles, and pebbles. Interplay of light and shadow and ambient music are part of the display.

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering organises Bitwise IIT Kharagpur, a time constrained online programing contest annually in the month of February. It is posed with some of the toughest programing and algorithmic challenges in a short span of 12 hours. In Bitwise 2k9, over 3000 teams participated from over 50 countries. Bitwise 2010 is scheduled on 14th February 2010.

NEXT ------------